Our own orders to advance were cancelled, and we stopped on at Maadan.
The evacuation of el Arish was rather an anti-climax. No one wants
another war, and it would not be honest to pretend that we were all
fire-eaters living for nothing but the joy of a scrap. At the same time
a life of dreary monotony on a dead land becomes more endurable when
there is the hope of coming excitement and the spur to effort of a
definite place to be won. And when a man is keyed up to the idea of a
fight, life seems dull and flat if he is suddenly told that it will not
come off.

The weather, however, did its best to give us something to think about.
It rained most nights, with thunder and lightning accompaniments, and
the damp and dismal hours of darkness seemed endless in the exposed
picquets. Save for the Australian loot it looked like a fasting
Christmas. Parcel mails could not be sent up, for every camel was
required to convey food and fodder on to the cavalry. The cigarette
ration was behindhand and most of the men were without a smoke. The
officers could torture themselves with the thought of five turkeys
ordered in Port Said and unlimited mess stores lying sixty miles away at
Romani. But at the last moment all was changed. A parcel mail came
in--and the spectre of bully unrelieved vanished--the five turkeys,
personally conducted by a versatile officer's servant, made their
appearance--together with sufficient _Daily Telegraph_ plum puddings for
every one to get a piece, and last but not least, a determined Brigadier
held up a ration convoy, and refused to let it through until he obtained
enough cigarettes for a small issue to the Brigade. This action
increased the sympathy which all felt for a tragedy which afflicted
Brigade Headquarters at this time. Their live turkey shepherded up the
line with extreme difficulty, suddenly, though perhaps not
unjustifiably, died before any one had time to kill it. Captain Kennedy
was immediately summoned to conduct a post mortem and had regretfully to
decide that it was not fit for human consumption, adding however that if
it were sent up to our headquarters they would make quite sure.

So there was some attempt at Christmas cheer in the holes in the sand
into which the weather had driven us, for we who had once set our
bivouacs to catch every breath of wind, now dug ourselves down three or
four feet to avoid the sand-laden and icy blast. (We were thus also
admirably protected against the bom